"It is still too early to assess, although we believe the Feds rate increase has been priced in," the central banks Executive Director for Economic and Monetary Policy, Juda Agung, said at a press conference on Thursday.
After nine years of maintaining a cheap dollar policy, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) raised its reference rate to 0.25 to 0.50 percent on Thursday morning (Indonesia time), a decision that has so far overshadowed global market players and created worries over capital outflows.
Juda said BI still maintained its reference rate this month because it still needed to monitor global and regional economic conditions following the Feds decision.
The Feds decision to raise the rate has been anticipated well by the market and has not caused an upheaval in the financial market.
"We saw that the domestic response is positive," he stated.
BI also hopes the Fed will be able to build good communication before adjusting further rate policies in 2016.
"We hope in the future that the Fed can conduct good communication. Yellen has clearly said she will communicate it well so as not to create uncertainty," Juda stated.
He further said the countrys economic fundamentals have continued to improve and the central bank believes inflation will be below 3 percent (year-on-year) and current account deficit will be around 2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
In view of that, Juda said there might emerge a consensus for easing the monetary policy, including lowering the BI rate in the future.
BI has maintained its reference rate at 7.5 percent for the last 11 months of 2015.
Indonesias financial market responded positively following the Feds rate hike on Wednesday (Thursday morning Indonesia Time). The Rupiah exchange rate appreciated by 16 points to Rp14.054 against the U.S. dollar in inter-bank transactions on Thursday.
The composite index also edged up 72.51 points or 1.62 percent to 4,555.96.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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